Origins: bonnie tyneside

Subject: Origins: bonnie tyneside
From: GUEST,archie robertson
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 08:31 PM

below are the words that I can remember my father singing to a song I knew as bonnie tyneside
although he was a scot he had good reason to love the area as he was bonded (efectively sold) by his parents and could only escape his 7 years of slavery by escaping o'er the border to england
I have been a folkie all my life and have sang in clubs and bars all over the world but I have never met anyone who knows this song
can anybody help me?



Its bonnie tyneside
Where my infancy passed
Like a beatiful dream
That's too lovely to last

I'd escape to the hills
And i'd wander all day
Amongst the green braes
Where the lambs are at play

And its bonnie tyneside
I will see you no more
After long years of exile
Away from your shore

Over far foreign countries
A wanderer I've been
And far have I wandered
And much have I seen

I have stood in the land
Where the sun ever shone
But I've nare seen country
As fair as my own

A place I've loved better
Than bonnie tyneside

Subject: RE: Origins: bonnie tyneside
From: eddie1
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 06:50 AM

Hi Archie
There's a lot about "Bonnie Tyneside" on Google. Not sure but I think I remember it being sung by The Five Smith Brothers!

Eddie

Subject: RE: Origins: bonnie tyneside
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 06:58 AM

Somewhere I have a recording of Willie Scott singing this song. Unfortunately, I know nothing about it other than that it appears in Alison McMorland's collection of Willie's songs, Herd Laddie of the Glen.

It does however strike me that this might have been the inspiration for Paul McCartney's Mull of Kintyre.

Subject: RE: Origins: bonnie tyneside
From: GUEST,archie robertson
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 05:38 PM

thanks eddie and fred
I will follow up on your leads

mudcat pointed me at a very old thread from someone with the tune looking for words and the midi is exactly the tune my dad used to sing!

Subject: RE: Origins: bonnie tyneside
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 04:23 AM

The tune in the Lyr/Tune Add: Bonnie Tyneside is note for note as I remember, the one that Willie Scott used to sing. However, the words were as above, rather than the set in the Lyr/Tune Add thread. Indeed, the words in that set are a Geordiesed version of a song also found in NE Scotland. I'm struggling at this hour (still only on my third cup of coffee) to recall the title. Bonny Aithenside, I think.

Subject: RE: Origins: bonnie tyneside
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 04:59 AM

Bonnie Ythanside is probably what you're looking for Fred (sometimes just Ythanside). There's a set in Ord with first verse very close to the 1st verse of the set in the Lyr/Tune Add thread, but not otherwise the same at a quick glance. Greig-Duncan 5 has several version of that (but I don't have vol 5).

Ord gives a tune, but I haven't time at the moment to compare it with the Bonnie Tyneside tune given in the other thread; I'll see if I can later.

The first 4 lines in Ord are:

  As I cam' in by Ythanside.
  Where swiftly flows the rolling tide,
  A fair young maid padded by my side
  She looked at me and smiled.

The tune is however not a "Scottish Waltz" - it's in 4/4.


Mick

Subject: RE: Origins: bonnie tyneside
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 12:55 PM

Mick,

That's the one.